My 20th birthday found me in a youth hostel in downtown Rome.  My 30th, crossing the Alps on a bike.  So I figured my 40th should be something special, albeit adapted to the life of a senile, mid-life man, who has expanded his vocabulary to include big words such as prostate and dysfunction.

So here I am.  My forties found me, having sold everything, moving into a motorhome, and touring the US and Canada, with two bikes and a dog in tow.

A friend of mine once told me that I was a collector of stories.  I think that aptly summarizes me– at least for a big chunk of the time. I love to live a good story and then retell it; to the point that sometimes I wonder whether I’m just experiencing life merely to tell a good tale.

I left a few weeks ago, searching for a tale– having installed solar panels to get my work fix, and carrying more laptops and gizmos than Inspector Gadget.
Continue reading Midlife crisis and a side of duck eggs →

Growing up in Michigan, I had an African-American friend who used to refer to those embarrassing cultural moments as nigger moments.  I know, I know… it’s not politically correct to say the N word, but I didn’t know any better, and I had a moment all to myself when I tried to use the same phrase, even among the same friend who had taught it to me earlier.  Apparently, only (some) African-Americans can use that word, and even so in selected circles.  Fair enough.  Lesson learned.

Lucky for me, I have a whole slew of other pejorative self deprecating words I can use instead that are both politically accepted and equally as funny.  There are trailer trash moments, as well as ghetto moments, but being a card holding member of the sovereign nation of Puerto Rico, I think I can use the jibaro moment card at will.  After all, I didn’t have a working phone until I was 15, and when I did we were restricted to 40 calls a month before the monthly rate doubled.
Continue reading N**g**/Jibaro moments on the way to Peru →

The infrequent times I train with pros (in any discipline) remind me of why I’m usually ensconced in the safety of a cubicle writing software.

Jason of Sager Sports came to visit for the holidays and the training mobile was back in action, although the RV was mostly a wall on which to lean bicycles and gear.  The weather was spectacular and the scenery breathtaking… the suffering, not so much.

Seeing that our paces are so disjoint, we each went our separate ways, only meeting back at the house for food and snacks.  Unfortunately, somewhere along the 4th day, Jason matter-of-factly said: “we’re going on a 100km” ride through the mountains.  I looked over my shoulder and seeing that no one else was around, I panicked.  On the select times when Jason graces me with his presence on a bike ride he has one of two things in mind: doling out humble pies or just taking it “easy” because he’s tired from his own training. Unfortunately easy for him, is 300W of pain for me.

6500 ft of elevation gain later, I was humbly back thinking how great it was to write software for a living, and ready to eat a supermarket’s worth of food.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and I’m plenty tired to merit some pictures instead of the usual barrage of nonsense.  So without further ado, here are some random before and after pictures. You’ll clearly see I got the new 2014 Racing Apparel kit this week. Yee haw!  Beautiful stuff!

My friends that are into endurance sports tell me that I’m built
more like a Kenyan than a Lance Armstrong impersonator. It seems
running comes a lot easier to me, with little training, whereas I’m
just mediocre at cycling, with a lot more effort. Unfortunately,
we’ll never know because I love riding my bike a lot more than I like
pounding on my knees. Well, until now…

Through no planning of my own, the 25 minutes a day of running that
has been going on at
Racing Apparel Headquarters have yielded dividends.

My running goal for the off-season was to break 21 minutes,
because… well, because my friend Ray said I couldn’t do it (easily).

So the past week or so, I stepped it up to 45 minutes instead of the
usual 25, and see if I could do a better 5k, this time at sea-level,
and on a flat course.

I tried to run it “bandido” which is short-hand, for just showing
up to the race, not signing up, and running. Hey, I’m not taking any
of their free Gatorade, and I’m already paying taxes on the streets,
so I’ve convinced myself that I somehow deserve it. Unfortunately,
only cripples and old men showed up, so I was having second thoughts
about not signing up. Perhaps, I’d show up in the top 5, and it would
be awkward. It’s one thing to end up 158th in your age-group, but
another thing entirely to arrive within a minute or two of the guy
breaking the tape. So, I buckled and paid $45 to run three miles on
public streets.

When the gun went off I kept telling myself “don’t be stupid; don’t
be stupid”. This was my mantra to remind myself not to go out too
fast. I consciously kept myself running at 7:00min/mile, hoping I
wouldn’t blow up. After the first mile, I was comfortably in 5th
place, and I started visualizing how cool it would be to arrive among
the first 3, with my friends, family, and especially my mom, watching.
I don’t think I had ever podium-ed in anything past pre-kindergarten
races (where everyone is a winner), so I started concentrating on
catching #4 and #3.

Luckily, as I sped up in the second mile, I was able to reel both
runners. The 1st guy was way out in the distance, apparently running
a race of his own, but the 2nd guy was actually within reach. I saw
my mom and sister at the finish line, so I figured I’d might as well
bury myself for the last 800 meters. Who cared if I walked the last
bit? So I pulled a kamikaze move– all or nothing– but unfortunately
as I was about to catch the 2nd runner at the finish line, everyone
started cheering us, alerting my prey and causing him to speed
slightly beyond my reach.

Long story short, I got third, but I did beat my previous record of
22:00 with a jaw dropping 19:48. Truth be told, my GPS marked 3.05
miles, which is 0.05 short of a 5k, but worse case scenario I’m safely
under the 21:00 mark, and pretty close to under 20, which is pretty
freaking awesome…especially for a non-runner.

So this is me, basking in the aura of kicking 40 years old right in
the ass, and being faster than I was in high school. My fastest mile
in high school was 6:20, and I did 3 of those puppies at 6:33 this
time, with the last one at 6:02. [And I didn’t actually throw up like
in high school.]

This one’s for you mom.

Training has started in earnest.  I’m at 7000 ft of altitude, training like all good cycling pros and trying to do what I can to not lose the fitness I gained last year (well, in my case, not so much fitness gained, but fitness lost in south Texas while drinking expensive wine and caviar– all indistinguishable from wine in a box and cheap tacos).

I hear other pros in northern latitudes are snow shoeing, so my off-season training partner and myself have taken to the trail to run up mountains in the snow.

The RV is conveniently parked at RA Racing Apparel headquarters in Santa Fe, and by the looks of it, it may never move from there (well, at least until spring).  My plan is to train in more temperate climates, but judging from the 12 inches of snow under the RV, we may never leave.

So… Velo and I went for a run today and…what the proverbial fuck…  My dog has been lying in a comfortable air conditioned apartment for the past 3 years, rarely getting off the bed (my bed), and never exercising for more than 3 minutes at a time while chasing what I can only describe as Texas rats (ugly, fat, and slow).  But apparently, a sedentary life is more conducive to athletic greatness than my periodic outings on the bike.

Velo ran circles around me, waited for me on every uphill, and when I thought he was actually getting tired, he was merely pausing to pee on the 500th tree today.  At various summits, I actually caught him looking back, with his mouth fully closed– not even tongue out to regulate heat.  Mind you, Velo is 56 in dog years, so the geriatric canine crowd is already passing me, and my season hasn’t even started.

It looks like dog food is doing more for hematocrit levels than veggies and beer.  I wonder if Alpo or Pedigree can also sponsor me.